


highgarden

by poisonrationalitie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Femslash February, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:41:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29503554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonrationalitie/pseuds/poisonrationalitie
Summary: Winter is over. Margaery invites Sansa to Highgarden.
Relationships: Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell
Comments: 2
Kudos: 61





	highgarden

**Author's Note:**

> For Femslash February. #10 - Daisy

Life at Highgarden was deceptive in its simplicity. It was unusually quiet, filled with blooming flowers as spring rolled in, abundant in food and splendour. The Tyrells were so ruthless in their manipulation in King’s Landing that one could only assume the skill was innate, that every one of them had a barb at the ready, had a honeyed tongue of poison.Once, Sansa had refused to believe it. It had very nearly killed her. Now, even with an uneasy peace, she refused to entertain the possibility of truth. She never drank without thoroughly inspecting the cup and pouring the wine herself. She ate less often than she drank, even when informed that she looked skeletal. It was much easier to hide one’s figure in the North, beneath thick gowns and furs. Southron folk had no need for the added warmth or modesty. It had taken her a few sweaty, dizzy days to give in to wearing the dresses she had once adored, dreamed of, treasured and cherished, and even once she acquiesced, it was difficult to resist the urge to cover herself up. In Winterfell, nobody could make out her ribs or skinny ankles or hollow collarbone. Here, she felt the eyes of a thousand.

There weren’t a thousand people at Highgarden. They held only a small court, and most of the courtiers lodged in the nearby town rather than in the castle. She was glad of it. Once she had dreamed of crowded tables and dancing until the dawn, but those dreams died in the winter, along with half the world. She was thankful for the opportunity to sit in the Sept uninterrupted, staring blankly at the stained glass or the flicker of candles, and to quietly slip into Margaery’s rooms without the need to dodge or lie or stammer an excuse.

Margaery. The invitation to come to the Reach had been in her handwriting, flowers pressed into the parchment. If Sansa had been fool enough to gamble, she might have bet there had been perfume applied to it upon its sending, though it didn’t survive the journey. Sansa hadn’t answered for a moon’s turn. She’d busied herself with ledgers, overseeing construction, visiting the little towns nearby, exercising her mare, writing to Jon instead. It had been Jon that convinced her to reply, in the end. He implored her not to be lonely, as he found himself. The war was over. They could breathe. She had arranged matters well enough that Winterfell could run itself in her absence, given no emergencies. There had been no Starks in Winterfell before, and it had survived, and in worse circumstances.

Even with that, she hadn’t known if she wanted to see Margaery. A lifetime spanned between them, or so it felt. Sansa had not seen Margaery since her wedding day. Her second wedding day, that was, to Joffrey. Before the boy had turned a vicious purple. Even that thought felt odd – Joffrey had always been older than her, until he wasn’t. Until he stayed rotting in the earth as she reached his age and then grew older, counting years he would never see. He had been such a child, she marvelled. So young, and so cruel, so quickly. She was older now than Margaery had been last they’d seen one another. Logically, she knew Margaery had grown too, but she could only ever imagine her as she was at sixteen, in that ivory gown, hair pinned up, beautiful and lovely and radiant and doomed. Sansa had been so sure she was doomed. That they both were. Now they stood on the other side of dragons and the Others and angry kings and queens and vengeful gods and they were the same as they ever were; two lonely girls in their childhood homes, widows. Sansa had knelt in the melting spring snows beneath a weirwood and cried and cried and cried until her eyes dried themselves. In the tears, she saw Highgarden, saw it as she had when they had those brief talks of her marrying Willas, all those years ago, when she had seen herself happy with a husband at her side and little children named for her father and her brothers playing in the gardens. And so she wrote the letter that night. She would go.

Margaery had always looked so much a woman where Sansa was not. Grief served to age Sansa in the way of wrinkles and dark circles and trembling hands. Margaery aged as if it had been a long summer, rounding off her curves nicely, stripping her face of childish fat, gifting her grace and self-possession and tempering her girlish laughter and enthusiasm. Sansa was rendered speechless at the sight of her. She held the horse’s bridle, heart pounding against her chest, reconciling the gorgeous woman before her with the girl she’d so looked up to, so pitied, so wanted to save.

Margaery was the first to break the silence.

“Sansa. My darling.” She stepped forward, extending her arms. Sansa stumbled forwards. She felt drunk. The kind she’d been only a few times, when she’d been thrown into a stupor, and climbed into bed feeling as if her soul was drifting away from her body, as if it was all some terrible dream and she was going to wake up to Arya poking her and Bran begging for a story. Margaery wrapped her arms around her and pulled her in close. It had been so long since she had been hugged. So long since she’d smelt those rose petals at the apex of Margaery’s neck and shoulder. Her eyes burned.

That night, she’d dined with the remnants of the Tyrell family, picking at her food and exchanging pleasantries, and then returned to the chambers assigned to her and not slept at all.She checked the locks regularly, warily eyed the wine that had been on the table when she’d entered, paced the perimeter of the room looking for any secret entrances, any spyholes, any concealed weapons. In the very early morning, two male voices had passed by her door, and she sat bolt upright on the bed, dagger in hand, until the sun rose entirely.

Margaery came to her that day. Knocked on the door, which nearly stopped Sansa’s heart. Sansa let her in, trembling, gripping the knife for dear life. Margaery a look so sad she’d wanted to cry, and gently shut the door. She was unaccompanied.

“What did they make us into?” she murmured, tucking a lock of brown hair behind her ear. Sansa had still said nothing aside from common courtesies. She offered nothing now. Margaery fetched two cups from the cabinet, and filled them both midway with red wine. Sansa took the proffered glass, but did not drink. Margaery did. She sighed. “I do not mean to poison you. I’ve never wished you harm. I am sorry the world has harmed you.”

“Who has it not harmed?” Sansa asked brusquely. Margaery wilted. Sansa swirled the goblet beneath her nose, braced, and sipped. She waited. It didn’t kill her.

The next day, Margaery took her to the rose gardens. She had been right. They far outstripped the gardens at King’s Landing. Roses of every colour blossomed under the careful guidance of the Tyrell’s servants. Margaery lent Sansa her arm as they walked. It was so warm. So bright. She picked a yellow rose, and almost lost it when her tremors became too much and her grip grew too unsteady. Margaery chattered about nothing. About her new gowns, about the orphans she’d visited (there was always an abundance of orphans, wasn’t there?), about the harvest. Sansa offered her nothing. She had nothing to offer. Highgarden rendered her mute. She was a poor prize for the effort of writing a letter. Of all her family, she had once strived to be the best guest possible, the most amicable, the most pleasant. She found herself not caring if Margaery found her a bore or not. If she did, she could at least go home. One person’s opinion could not ruin her any longer. There wasn’t enough left to ruin.

She put the singular rose in a vase in her room. She started a letter to Jon, and then tossed it to the fire. It was full of whinging. As if he were the lucky one. It felt cruel to complain of silence and of homesickness when it was to Jon. The laps of the gardens became a daily occurrence. Margaery filled in the gaps were Sansa would or could not speak.

“I’m to visit an orphanage tomorrow,” she announced one time, as they strode through the section of pink roses. “If you would like to join me, I would be most appreciative of the company.” Their arms intertwined. Sansa’s throat closed. In town, there was greater danger. Anyone could be there. Anyone could launch at them from the shadows, could arrive in a storm of swords, could raze the place and kill every one of them. At home, she had her guards thoroughly inspect each village, had them line the road and man the doors wherever she went. She could not demand that of the Tyrell men. And her own men, who had accompanied her on the long journey south, numbered few. Most were reluctant to leave their families. Many had sworn on their life to never cross the Neck. Too many Northerners came south and never returned. Sansa could not hold it against them. She too had gone south and ended up prisoner. Her father had been murdered for daring to leave home.

“May I think on it?” Sansa asked quietly. Margaery lay her hand on Sansa’s forearm, sending a shudder through her.

“Of course,” Margaery said. “You may think on anything you wish, my dear.”

Nobody had called Sansa such lovely things without an ulterior motive since her mother had died and she’d been wed to Tyrion Lannister. Sometimes she wondered where her mother’s bones had ended up, once they were flushed in the river. When they crossed the Trident, she had turned hysterical. Like a little child, she feared that if she got wet, she would somehow touch her mother’s corpse, end up stained by it. It had taken a long time for her to be able to shut her eyes while in the bath again. She thought she might never open them again.

Sansa did not go to the orphanage, but she sent alms with Margaery. In the late afternoon, under a blush sky, Margaery retrieved her and insisted they walk together. They passed through the rose gardens and headed to the fields beyond, further than Sansa had yet been. Margaery’s maids set down chairs for them, and a small wooden table, and poured wine and stood by with a chest of food if they desired. Sansa again inspected the drink, sniffing and swirling, skimming her finger across the top of it. Dreadful manners, to be so openly suspicious of a host. Worse to end up dead. Not for her, so much, but Winterfell and the North could not take it. There had been so much instability for too long. She had no family left, and honour helped her none, but she could be dutiful, like her mother’s family had been before they turned to dust. She had often been told she had the Tully looks; she wondered now if that would cease as she got older. Her resemblance to them would not change, but the people who remembered what the Tullys of Riverrun had looked like would number less and less.

“Your unhappiness is greater than I thought,” Margaery noted. Sansa stared at her.

“Your happiness is greater than what I expected,” Sansa said. “The gods have blessed you as they have not me.”

“You don’t believe in the gods, Sansa,” Margaery said dismissively. Sansa said nothing. “I had been foolish enough to hope that the spring here might give you some brightness.”

“I appreciate your efforts. I do. My grief is no fault of yours.”They sat in silence a while. Margaery took food. Sansa did not.

“I enjoy watching the sunset,” Margaery said, after a time. “It’s always so beautiful, regardless of what the day has been like. There will always be sunsets, and they will always be beautiful.” Margaery leaned over and took her hand. Sansa let her. Her fingers were numb, so it mattered not. They didn’t leave the field until the moon was high.

Two days later, Sansa found herself in the field again, trampling the flowers underfoot. Margaery waved a hand; it did not matter, the blooms were unimportant. Margaery took her hand again, rubbing circle into her fingers. They twitched at the touch, and the return of life to them. The wine was sweeter that day. On an empty stomach, the rush came quicker. She turned her face to the sky.

“I know you like music, dearest, but do you like riddles? An old maester once told me that if you have a hand for music, you’ll have a head for riddles.”

“I do not know,” Sansa said. “You can tell me one, if you wish.” Margaery did. Margaery filled the day with riddles, and while at first Sansa’s answers were monosyllabic and dull, she warmed to it quicker than she had warmed to anything else of yet. Once she was in the right frame of thinking, they grew easy. The morning passed quicker than she expected, peeling back problems to their roots. She took a little cheese without a half hour’s inspection. Margaery beamed winningly.

Margaery accompanied her to the Sept the next morning, though neither of them prayed. Sansa watched the light turn multi-coloured as it came through the rainbow glass, and examined the painted faces of each of the Seven. The Maiden, the Mother, the Crone. She did not know which of those she was. She had been married and was growing too old to be a maiden, but she had no children of her own, and little hope of them. The Crone still stood a world away from her, in the realm of women who had known her grandparents and two mad Targaryens. Of them all, she felt like the Stranger. Steeped in the deep dead dark of winter, still cowering in the crypts, up to her ankles in her grave. She looked sideways at Margaery. Did she think herself the Maiden still? Her eyes were lowered, her rosebud mouth closed. Was the colour in her cheeks real or rouged?

There was to be a dance in one of the larger pavilions in the gardens in a week. The letters had been sent out. Sansa was invited, naturally. Despite her height, she had lost so much weight that Margaery’s gowns could fit her with only slight alterations. There was a tailor at the ready the moment she wished for him. Margaery took both her hands and Sansa could not say no to her soft doe eyes, that lopsided smile, and so she steeled herself with foul ale as the tailor took her measure and held in her tears until she reached her chambers and threw herself into the furs of her bed.

That was the first night Margaery came to her.

A knock on the door after nightfall; Sansa answered, blade between her fingers, but exhausted enough that she accepted she had no real hope if her would-be killer crossed the threshold. Margaery put her fingers on the dagger, on the sharp edge, and pressed so that a drop of blood welled from her fingertip.

“I do not wish to kill you,” Margaery said, gently, as if she were talking to a child. Sansa’s hand shook. Margaery lifted her finger to her mouth, and sucked at the blood.

“How are you so sure the blade isn’t poisoned?” Sansa demanded. Margaery paused, hand curled against her lips.

“I’m not.” Sansa stared. Margaery wiped her mouth. “I don’t think you wish to kill, Sansa. You wish to escape. You stab someone so that they double over and you can run. You don’t desire their slow, suffering death. You’re a Stark.” Sansa inhaled deeply, and stepped back so as to allow Margaery to shut the door.

“The war might have changed me,” she said.

“I have no doubt that it did. But it served to make you sadder, sweetest, not crueller.” Sansa did not reply. She set the knife down on the table. Margaery pulled herself out a chair. Sansa sat on the edge of the bed, running her fingers over the dark wooden post, along the carved grooves.

“I should have thought better of making you wear the gold gown,” Margaery said, pouring herself a goblet of crimson wine. “That was cruel. I apologise sincerely to you, Sansa. I am so sorry for hurting you.” It took her a moment. The colour of the dress had barely registered. Margaery was right, of course; it had been Lannister gold. Had she worn it during her marriage to Tommen? At court, with Cersei’s eyes raking over it? She gripped the post, shutting her eyes, trying to steady herself.

“It’s a Tyrell colour, too,” she managed, voice weaker than she’d hoped. She opened her eyes. Margaery smiled at her. She was always smiling, she never stopped; only the tone of it changed. Was that her, or was it part of being a Tyrell, was it part of the training they had to succeed at court and make allies and keep in the good graces of all? Sansa had never had such training. Her father had never seemed to plan for her to go to court. He had never seemed to plan any future for her, except in the vaguest of senses, that she would someday likely leave home and marry and have children. Back then, time had stretched out before them, adulthood as far and as foreign as what lay beyond the horizon, undemanding and unrealised. As much time as she’d spent wishing and praying her childhood away, longing to be older or prettier or more important, childhood had dragged its heels, taking an age. Until it hadn’t. She was given a doll at breakfast and a few weeks later stared at the maggots crawling from her father’s rotting severedhead.

“It is,” said Margaery. “Gold for the harvest, for sheaves of wheat, for fresh-baked bread.” The Tyrells did not shit gold. They ate it. Silence settled around them, like the dust on Robb’s bones, until Margaery shook it off. Sansa did not know how she found the strength. She never would. “Sansa, dearest, you do not have to come. I do not wish to make a single demand of you; it is enough that you are here. More than enough. I thought that you would not come at all.”

Sansa looked up. Pressed her lips together, formed the words in her mind, ran them over, wondered what Jon would advise. Once, she had had so many people to ask advice of. Her mother. Her father. Septa Mordane, Old Nan, Maester Luwin. Jeyne Poole, if she wanted the ear of a peer, Robb if she wanted an older brother’s word, even Bran, if it was about the workings of the castle, the details of a knight’s great achievements. She had never gone to Jon. What had they had in common? What gap had he filled?

She had never thought to ask him anything. She had never thought to care about a word he said.

He was all that remained to her of her family. He looked so much like Arya. He sounded like Robb. He was enchanted by all the stories and myths of the North like Bran had been. Sansa did not know if he was like Rickon. If Rickon would have been like him. She had lived longer alone than Rickon had ever been alive.

“I want to go if it will please you,” Sansa said. “If you would like me there.” Margaery dropped her eyes low.

“It would not please me to make you ill, or uncomfortable, or sadder.”

“It would please you to have me there,” Sansa said, surer.

“Not at your expense.”

“I want to please you, Margaery,” Sansa admitted. “I always have. You were kind to me at a time when nobody else was. I wanted to be you. I wanted to save you. I wanted you to be happy.”

“I didn’t need saving, Sansa,” Margaery said, a stray note in her voice. “And I wasn’t kind to you. Not enough. Not when it mattered.”

“They saved you from Joffrey, but not from the Lannisters,” Sansa said, shifting closer to the edge of the bed. Margaery stood suddenly, her face pinched. Her smile was slighter. Tighter.

“I ought to be to bed. Goodnight, Sansa. The wine is not poisoned. I assure you.” Sansa stood to say goodnight, tongue fat and flimsy. Margaery left before she could muster the courage to utter a word. Sansa sat in bed half the night staring at the bottle of wine. It remained untouched by her at dawn.

Margaery didn’t visit that day. Sansa didn’t leave her room. She stood by the window and watched the tiny figures bend over the crops, and wondered how many people they had lost. She wondered what it was like to have work to do each day, to lose yourself in aching limbs and burned skin. She rested her chin on her hands and wandered into daydreams of living in a little cottage, of life as one of the smallfolk.

Margaery returned the next morning, and took her around the gardens, but there was little left to see. They parted early. Sansa did not eat again, and knelt in the Sept to avoid questioning. She fell asleep on the coloured stones, forehead pressed to the ground. Her face hurt when she woke. It felt numb. She thought of the Hound and his melted, twisted face. She dreamed of him that night. Of the Blackwater. The songs seared themselves into her mind. She woke in the morning with the last, frantic strains echoing over the screams of the battle, of the dying and the dead.

She walked with Margaery, but they talked little. The dress arrived the day before the ball. She had not worn cloth of gold in so long. She folded it neatly and put it in the chest at the foot of her bed. She dined with the Tyrells that evening, and Margaery sat next to her. Laid a hand on her arm as she spoke. The touch was unexpected. Sansa coughed. Margaery withdrew, and Sansa resolved not to think too hard on it.

Margaery asked her if she wished to prepare together for the ball. Sansa said she would. It was too difficult to deny Margaery. It was hard enough to speak to her at all. She feared she’d forgotten her courtesies, how to speak to another noblewoman. Formality was rare in Winterfell, especially in times such as these. There were too few of them to warrant it. You could not demand grovelling from a man who had seen you sob and fall to pieces and ate with you at dinner and swore his sword to you and administered your medicine.

Once, Margaery had had a company of cousins and friends flitting around her at any given moment, fixing her hair and fetching her things and talking and laughing and playing games. Now, her chambers were full of ghosts. There were so many empty seats, empty spaces. Margaery hugged her when she entered. Sansa stiffened. Returned it, cautiously.

“Thank you,” Margaery murmured into her shoulder. Sansa hugged her properly, arms tight, heart full. They didn’t fit together as the once had. Sansa was all bones. Margaery was thicker. It didn’t matter. Sansa could rest her chin atop Margaery’s hair, if she wanted to. She wanted to. She didn’t. Finally, they parted. Margaery smiled; and of all the smiles, it seemed the most genuine since she’d arrived. “I am so glad you came, darling,” she said. She lifted her arm slightly. Sansa returned her smile nervously. Margaery committed, and touched her hand to Sansa’s cheek. It warmed her through. Her heart stuttered, like she was twelve again.

“I’m glad of it, too,” Sansa said softly. It had been so long since she’d been touched so tenderly. Her body ached for it. Her stomach coiled.

“Will you have any wine?” Margaery asked, withdrawing her hand. Sansa exhaled a sigh.

“Please,” she said.

Margaery gave her a golden goblet, inlaid with precious stones and engraved with crossing patterns. Sansa took a deep breath, and looked down at it. Margaery was not trying to kill her. None of the Tyrells were. She wanted to just drink. She could feel Margaery’s eyes on her. She lifted it to her lips. Nobody wished to kill her. Unless it were all an elaborate trap. Unless they wanted Winterfell. Unless someone was working against her and the Tyrells from inside the castle. Who would be her successor? She was the last Stark. There was no one else. Only her.

She pressed her lips together, and performed her routine inspection. She couldn’t bear to look at Margaery. It passed. She sipped from it, and found it sweeter on her tongue than she’d expected. It was of a different sort to what she’d been served before. She froze, waiting for the choking to begin, for her breath to shorten, for it to fall from her hand. She saw it all at once. Her breath shortened; she stumbled, and it slipped through her fingers. She couldn’t breathe. She – she –

“Sansa? Sansa?”

No. No. Who would write to Jon?

“Sansa!”

Firm arms bought her back, around her shoulders, a hand on her waist. She threw her head into her skirts, clutching at her gown madly. Spittle and wine stuck in her mouth. She was too frightened to swallow. She jerked her head back and forth, and hot tears spilled down her cheek. It was time. It was time. But she could not die in Highgarden. She did not want to die a lonely death in the South like her father. She wanted to go home.

She cried out, and pushed her forehead against the nearest firm surface. Fingers stroked her hair, wiped her tears, stopped her from falling to the floor. She was sitting somewhere. She howled. Begged for home. Please. Please. Please. And in return, she got, Sansa, Sansa, Sansa. 

When her senses returned to her, she found herself sitting on the footstool. Margaery had an arm wrapped around her, and the others in her hair. Sansa’s stomach felt empty. A large, red stain bloomed across her dress. She stiffened, fearing the worst. No, it was wine. Just wine. She steadied her breathing, filling herself with as much air as she could fit. Margaery did not let go of her.

“If tonight is too much, you do not have to attend,” Margaery told her. “I promise I will not mind. Your wellbeing is paramount to me, Sansa. I would only feel worse if I thought I was making you suffer.” Sansa shook her head.

“I want to come,” she said quietly, voice brittle. “I do want to. I didn’t – I lost control of myself. It won’t happen again.”

They dressed together. Sansa kept her eyes to herself. She only looked up at Margaery’s bidding, when the other woman turned round, an arm covering the skin still bared. Sansa’s cheeks heated.

“Would you mind very much doing the lacing for me, sweetest?” Margaery asked softly. Sansa fixed her gaze on her face, and swallowed, before nodding. Margaery turned to bare her back. The ribbon was ivory-toned and very fine. Sansa carefully fed it through the eyelets, not allowing her gaze to linger on Margaery’s thin, exposed smallclothes. Her heart pulsed against the base of her throat. She tied a neat bow at the base of Margaery’s back.

“My hands are shaky,” Sansa said in a small voice. “The bow is lopsided.” Margaery stepped towards the mirror, a long, glass oval, rounded with rosewood. She put her hands on the back of her hips, head twisted around as far as it could go. Sansa could see the soft blue veins fluttering beneath the swathe of exposed skin. She lowered her eyes.

“It’s straight, by my eye,” Margaery said. “Thank you, sweetling.”

Sansa’s gown was laced differently, possible to do up on her own. That didn’t mean her fingers shook any less. Once, she had had the neatest, tiniest stitches of any of the girls she knew, and had an adept hand for fine work. Never again would she possess such a talent. She couldn’t name when the tremors started, but they were a constant companion. She had turned clumsy. Lost her grace. She had wept for it, though it was such a stupid, insignificant thing to cry over when so much else had been lost.

There were only two more eyelets for it to pass through. She knew she could do it. She had done it so many times; for herself, for her mother, for Arya. It wasn’t difficult. The holes were big. She had a good grip. It just – it just – it kept getting away from her. She harder she concentrated, the harder it became. Tears sprung to her eyes unbidden. She gritted her teeth. She had survived so much, and she was to be bought to tears by a stubborn piece of fabric.

Margaery came to her without a word. Gently, she took the ribbon between two sturdy fingers. Her nails were long, rounded off neatly at the edges. She silently finished the lacing. Sansa’s breath turned ragged. Margaery was right there. Right in front of her. Her hands were barely an inch away from her small clothes.

She was almost glad when the dressing was done. It set her nerves on too great a cliff. They rouged their cheeks and lips easily, and Margaery did not ask Sansa to braid her hair. Sansa didn’t blame her. They helped one another to put on jewellery, and Sansa pressed her lips together tightly and forced herself not to react at every hint of a touch. Margaery bedecked herself in golden cuffs, dangling earrings, and a delicate chain around her neck, ending in an emerald pendant.

“You look beautiful,” Sansa said, curling her fingers against her abdomen. Margaery glowed.

The garden was beautiful at sunset. A thousand candles had been lit. They sparkled against the red sky and the approaching purple evening, beneath a canopy of stars. The pavers were painted in bright colours, each one depicting a different flower. Tall green hedges bordered their dancefloor. Long tables held gleaming platters of food; sweet fruits, breads of every colour, stews and soups smelling of home, a tower of tarts and cakes. Many had come to escape their castles and routines. Mainly women; men were in short supply no matters where you were. Entire armies had been razed only a few short years ago. Of those left, most were very old or very young. There were more children than Sansa expected. She supposed the winter had not been so harsh here; less had died of the freezing cold or the sickness it bought, more had had some bread and vegetables to live on. The children ran through the mazes of long skirts dyed in every vibrant colour.It was a ball of widows and the unmarried; of fatherless or ill-begotten children belonging to their mother’s house rather than the taint of bastardry.

Margaery was swept away from her by the few men that were in attendance, lead out to dance again and again. Sansa took a lemon cake from the tower of baked goods, and found herself a stone bench to sit on. A little girl ran by and then doubled back, eyes wide. Staring. Sansa smiled at her nervously.

“Good evening,” she said politely. The little one ran away. Sansa sighed, and bit into her cake. Only after swallowing did she realise she’d forgotten to check for poison.

The last reaches of the sun disappeared behind the mountains, and the casks were bought out more frequently. Sansa had four cups and marked herself spent. She did not dance. She was not asked to. She watched the courtiers flit between conversations and partners, watched the children play and the grow tired and drag on their mother’s dresses, asking if they could yet retire. Sansa could have been a bird perched in a high tree for all she was involved. Her back began to ache.She was so, so tired.

There was no point to this, she realised suddenly. She gained nothing from watching them. It was for the benefit of the people of the Reach more than anyone. A night for everyone to pretend that all was well. A farce. Once the thought crossed, her mind, she could not parry it. She watched Margaery talking, laughing, never missing a step or a beat or a look. If Sansa had ever had the potential to be like that, it was long gone. She stood suddenly. Her head spun. She had been away from Winterfell for nearly a moon. She would need to leave soon. The candles shone too brightly for her, and the songs shrieked in her ears. It was all a farce. She brushed the crumbs from her borrowed dress and fled the party.

Her feet made their own path, and she did not enter the hedge maze nor the rose gardens. Neither did she return to her bedchamber, though that would have been the soundest idea, given that she was alone in the night. Instead, Sansa found herself in the field where Margaery had told her riddles. The air had an unexpected cold bite to it. Nothing like home, but unlike the gentle spring heat of the day. She stood in the field, gaze skimming across the grass and the small white flowers. Music drifted from the party, faint but melodious. The tiny yellow flames illuminated the far-off pavilion and one side of the castle, dousing it in gold. It would have made a pretty painting. If she still had the dexterity, she might’ve learned to paint, for she had the money to import the supplies from Essos. She would have painted and painted until she could capture the beauty of Highgarden and hang it opposite her bed. The gardens, the curves of the white stone, the lilt of the lute, the light from the garden party, the women in their finery, the children giggling, the endless food and drink, the relief from the reality of those far-flung cold keeps – they would better show Margaery than a simple portrait.

Sansa slipped down into the earth, almost without noticing. It was dark and rich beneath her. The dress would be soiled, she realised. The grass smelled of summer. She sat, gazing at the castle. It was lovelier to imagine what might be happening that to be there and see the truth of it. Things were always lovelier in the mind’s eye. To a girl who had never been to the capital, King’s Landing had been a dream. She now knew that she much preferred the place from a distance.

The moon rose higher, almost full. The music waned. The light dimmed. As the darkness crept over walls of Highgarden, the truth of her situation set in. She was alone in a field, and the drunk would begin to wander with the death of the party. A dull coldness inlaid itself upon her wrists, but her belly did not turn to fear. She was so tired. As if she had not slept in years. She grabbed a fistful of grass and flowers and waited for sleep to take her, and from the mind or from the blade she cared not.

When she made out a figure on the horizon, she did not run. Her legs had irons clapped around them. It was a burden to keep her eyes open. A hand touched her cheek, warm and gentle. Sansa took a breath, and waited.

“Sansa.” Her eyes fluttered open. Margaery’s hair sprung loose from its braids. A hand gripped her shoulder. “Sansa. Sansa!”

“Margaery,” she murmured.

“I was frightened, Sansa. I could not find you, and nobody knew where you had gone.” Margaery looked up, her mouth a hard line, scanning the field. “You are alone out here?”

“Yes,” Sansa said. Let me sleep, she thought. Please, let me sleep.

“Sansa,” Margaery said, almost scolding. Sansa looked at her, eyes glassy. The world swam before her. She was crying. She hadn’t meant to cry. Margaery pulled her into a tight hug, and Sansa cried into her soft, loose hair. It smelt of roses. Of course it did. Margaery held her until her eyes dried, and the world came back into focus. Her eyes adjusted to the night. Two guards stood in the longer grass nearby, out of earshot, but close enough to intervene if danger was abound. Her skin prickled. They had seen the embrace. She removed herself from Margaery’s grasp roughly, cheeks warming.

Margaery followed her gaze. “They’re my men, Sansa. They care not. They knew about Loras.”

“Loras?” Sansa asked hoarsely. “What about Loras?”

Margaery didn’t reply. Sansa glared at the guards. Another thing she had been too young to know, too naïve to know, too stupid. She had never really learned. Only a fool or someone with a death wish would go out at night alone. She paused, considering.

Perhaps she wasn’t a fool.

Margaery gingerly sat next to her. Both their gowns would be ruined. Margaery took her hand, just the one, and said nothing. Sansa let their fingers lace together.

“Are you unhappy here?” Margaery asked, finally. Sansa frowned.

“I’m unhappy wherever I go,” she said. Paused. “The maester thinks it melancholy. Some are born with a melancholic disposition. More likely, I acquired it during the war.”

“Is it curable?”

“For some.”

Margaery’s grip tightened. Sansa squeezed back. A soft wind shook the weeping trees and the flowers speckled through the grass.

“I want you to be happy, Sansa,” Margaery said, voice thicker. “I have wanted it since I first knew you. I had never known anyone so sad. I still have not. And you, least of all I’ve met, deserve it.”

“Nobody gets what they deserve. If one deserves punishment, they’ll be rewarded grandly. If one deserves a long life, they will surely die young.” Margaery leaned over, putting her head on Sansa’s shoulder. Sansa stiffened at the touch. Didn’t let go of her hand.

“Sansa.”

“Margaery?”

“Do you like the flowers here?” Sansa furrowed her brow, looking across the field.

“They’re daisies, aren’t they?”

“Yes. They’re daisies.”


End file.
